Gender expectations are a thing of the past, especially when your name is Jaden Smith. His gender presentation has made the official entrance into fashion as he has been crowned as the new face of Louis Vuitton’s womenswear campaign.
Watch Willow Smith’s “F Q-C #7” Video
“The different Me’s represent my Chakras. Yellow is Self-confidence, Blue is my voice (song), Red is my survival instinct, and the Black is a combination of everything (the true me),” Willow Smith says of her latest video. Smith wrote and produced the song and co-directed the video.
Will Smith & Jada Pinkett-Smith under investigation by Children and Family Services
Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith are under investigation by the Los Angeles Department of Children & Family Services after a picture of their 13-year-old daughter Willow in bed with actor Moises Arias, 20, surfaced.
Monday Morning Challenge: Cast Good Times
Here’s the deal: Sony Pictures has decided to turn the 70’s television sitcom Good Times into a feature-length film. Last week, Deadline reported that Sony has tapped producer Scott Rudin and writer Phil Johnston to head the project. (Before we go all Spike Lee and question whether a couple of white dudes should be in charge of this, let’s all take a moment to exhale a collective sigh of relief that Mr. Perry is nowhere near the project.) Now, the film is in the very beginning stages, but what we do know is that, as Deadline put it, “The movie will be set in the 1960s, which gives Johnston a rich and politically charged period to mine.” Because, you know, the 60s is, like, the only politically charged period ever, the 70s was really all about disco, and black people can sit anywhere on the bus now and there’s a black president so they couldn’t possibly update the series. But I digress.
Anyway, since there are very little rumors circulating about the flick, I thought I’d take this morning to issue myself a bit of a Good Times movie challenge. That is, I do what Hollywood seemingly can’t: I cast a non-Tyler Perry, mainstream Hollywood film starring black people without using the names Kerry Washington, Zoe Saldana, and Halle Berry.
Pray for me.
Stop Saying Little Black Girls Are “Too Grown”
By TaMeicka L. Clear
I saw a conversation in a black lesbian Facebook group about Willow Smith being gay at age 13 and having a girlfriend. The conversation was about the probability that she is gay and if 13 is too young to be gay and have a girlfriend.
I was challenged by some of the comments and concerned mostly around the idea that Black folk seem to have around controlling the behavior and expression of youth. Parental control is a cross cultural issue, however I believe that issues of internalized slavery and colonization cause Black people to worry and attempt to protect Black youth from the ever present notion that “we can’t really do whatever we want because we are not as free as white people are”.
Girl Power: The Smith’s Advice
By Marika Adams
Now we’ve all seen Willow Smith and her hairstyles, right?
It feels like she changes it every week with almost no fight with her parents. Now with the mounting criticism by the public on her parenting skills, Jada Pinkett-Smith has responded on her facebook page.
A letter to a friend…
This subject is old but I have never answered it in its entirety. And even with this post it will remain incomplete.
On the Inevitable #Fail of the Whitney Houston Biopic
As much as I’d like to stop publicly mourning the death of a person I never met, I’m not ready. Tweeting #shoopforjesus, randomly saying “‘Re ain’t here!?” to whomever will listen, and concluding that Whitney wasn’t that bad of a dancer after watching the “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” video are clear indicators that I’m: 1. my mother’s child and 2. not quite ready to let go. So, (un)fortunately, I must write about Whitney again. (I’m sure you can find a pundit sounding off on Rush Limbaugh somewhere on the internet.)
It makes sense, then, that I went in on my friend Maegs when she mentioned news of a Houston biopic and tried to defend why Jennifer Hudson was a legitimate option. My profanity-laced diatribe not only included the “J.Hud’s not pretty enough” angle, but also featured a rather long-winded digression about how much I hate her Weight Watchers commercials and thus would not stand for her playing my mama’s favorite singer.
Summer M.'s Predictions for 2011
Admittedly, this blog is about a week late. Teena Marie’s unfortunate and untimely death caused me to bump my 2011 predictions back a week. I’m not sure if I can technically call the following statements predictions since we are already a few days into the new year. Nonetheless, I prognosticate for you, dear audience. I will try my best not to cheat or be any lazier than I usually am. And by lazy, I mean I won’t predict anything (unfortunate) about Tyler Perry or Oprah Winfrey or how I plan to use my fantasy football winnings to adopt a puppy and name him Vick. (Although if you’d like to read what I tweeted during Barbara Walters’ interview of the Divine Ms. O, you may see that here.) Instead, I offer the following hopes for the new year:
Uninspired Nihilism
Lately, I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to blog. To be sure, it’s not because I lack the desire to write and make you privy to my mental awesomeness each Monday morning, but rather because I’ve essentially checked out of the blogging world. I wish I could blame it on my dissertation. (It’s coming along. Not swimmingly, but it’s coming along nonetheless.) I could blame my blogging inactivity on the melanin storm of comments I got over at the Crunk Feminist Collective for talking smack about light-skinned people. (That blog could not pass the brown paper bag test, and folks were not happy.) It’s also likely that my hasty preparation for my fantasy football drafts have slowed my consumption of all things pop culture and news. (Gargamel’s Revenge goes into Monday Night Football with a 32-point lead over its week 1 opponent, while The Flux Capacitors cling to an 18-point lead over A Love Bizarre.) Yet, there are only so many fantasy football podcasts one can listen to until the (presumably) straight, white, obnoxiously nerdy and sport-obsessed male quota has been met and surpassed. All of these statements are true, but inadequately explain my blogging ennui.
